


My Kingdom For A Kiss

by tielan



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Friendship/Love, Post-Movie, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 00:12:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eugene presses a hand against his chest and his expression is pained. "Do you really think I would just ask for food from the cook?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Kingdom For A Kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kawree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kawree/gifts).



> I was given this story as a pinch-hit on the 23rd, and it gave me all kinds of trouble before I thumped it soundly into submission. I hope it meets your requirement of fluffy and sweet with just a _dab_ of angst to spice things up!
> 
> And thanks so much to Voks for the beta!

The reflection of the rising moon wobbles in the water of the river as the warm summer sky fades to sharp night.

Up on the roof of her parents’ castle, Rapunzel takes in a deep breath of salty air and old stone, of distant dinners and torch smoke, of seagull droppings and old lichen, and lets the press of the day drain out of her.

“Hey.” Eugene hefts an apple from inside the satchel he brought up with them and tosses it to her, neat as pie. Rapunzel catches it and smiles.

“Have you been in the orchards again?”

“Just the kitchens.”

She pauses mid-bite, brows arched in query. “Did you steal this?”

Eugene presses a hand against his chest and his expression is pained. “Do you really think I would just _ask_ for food from the cook?”

Rapunzel laughs and bites into the apple, savoring its crisp tang on her tongue. Stolen or not, it’s delicious - and exactly what she needed tonight after the ambassadorial dinner.

“I just happened to notice that you wanted some space to breathe.” Eugene is watching her, the last light of the day gleaming in his eyes. “At dinner. And you didn’t touch your dessert, either.”

“I wasn’t hungry for pastry.” She bites into the apple with a sigh of pleasure.

There’s something about such simple food - so different from the fine meats and elegant sauces served for dinner tonight, or the fine pastries that were offered for dessert. Nobody just eats an apple in the palace - even her mother peels apples with a silver knife, slicing the flesh delicately off the core.

There are a lot of things to get used to in her new life.

“Anyway, I thought you could do with some time away. And since I hadn’t yet shown you my kingdom, I figured it was time I let you come up here.”

“Your kingdom?”

He waves his hand at the rooftop around them. “Central location, amazing views, aerobic opportunities, great for taking the mind off everything else going on down in the palace...”

Eugene trails off, and the silence has an odd quality about it. Rapunzel drags her gaze away from the street lamps flaring to life one by one below as the lamplighters move along their routes through the city.

In the twilight, he looks...different, almost strange. Older, suddenly, although it’s not more than a month since she met him and he changed her life.

When Eugene catches her looking at him, he shifts. The strangeness is gone, and in its place is the Eugene she knows and loves. “So how were the lessons this afternoon? Did I miss much?”

There are so many little things to running a kingdom; things that Rapunzel needs to learn - is learning in the lessons that take up so much of her day. She lived in a tower for the first eighteen years of her life, and now she’s the Princess of a kingdom - even if it’s a fairly small one. There’s a lot to learn.

Usually, Eugene goes to the lessons with her.

Today he didn’t and was nowhere to be found.

“Not much,” she said. “It was about taxes.”

“Oh, I always try to avoid taxes when they come up,” he grinned. “I never really understood what they were for, though.”

“A small percentage of everything produced in the kingdom comes to my father to keep the kingdom going. That’s taxes. And everyone who lives in the kingdom pays them. Although Mother Gothel didn’t.”

“She’s probably not a good example. Although neither am I.”

There’s something in the way he says it. Rapunzel frowns a little. “You’ve never paid taxes?”

“Not unless I could steal them.”

Rapunzel laughs and finishes her apple. She thinks she should probably chide him for that, now that she’s a princess, but she doesn’t. “Well, taxes pay for all the general things in the kingdom - roads repairs and public buildings, basic reading and figuring education for children whose parents can’t afford it, the city guards...”

“The guards get paid from taxes? Now I _know_ taxes are evil.”

“Eugene!” But she’s laughing as she protests. The captain of the guard still isn’t happy that Eugene escaped the noose, or that his horse has reached a truce with the former-thief. “It wasn’t very interesting. You were lucky to miss this lesson.”

This time the pause is distinct, and Rapunzel looks over at him, and sees the stillness in his expression - not a comfortable easiness, but a cold, dreadful resolve. Something in her belly stirs uneasily, and she sets the apple core aside.

“What’s wrong, Eugene?”

He looks away, his hair falling down over his eyes. “I’m thinking about leaving the palace.”

“What? No! Eugene...”

Panic grips her limbs like the terror she felt that first moment when she walked into the Snuggly Duckling and saw all those faces looking down at her.

“No, hear me out. I think it might be for the best. There are kingdoms out there who’ve never heard of the great Flynn Rider. And...I’m just a thief who once helped you, really. Now that you’ve got your family back--”

“Eugene.” Rapunzel reaches for him, slides her fingers into the warmth of his hand and holds him tight. “Is this about the Afarrewaye ambassador at dinner? The hints he dropped?”

“What? No! I’m not... I mean, we’re not...” He trails off and although his grip is warm around hers, his expression is torn. “I’m just a thief,” he says, as though that should explain everything.

Maybe it does explain everything to the people down beneath them in the castle, in the city. But they’ve never lived inside walls that were a prison, confining them in such a narrow strait of life. Rapunzel lived like that with Mother Gothel, and she’s not going to live like that ever again.

“You’re not just a thief.” Rapunzel says, searching for the right words - for words that will make him stay. “I mean, you’re a thief, yes. But you’re not _just_ a thief. You’re my friend.”

“You have lots of friends.”

“I have lots of people who want to be my friend.” Most of the court, an awful lot of courtiers, and so many people who want something from her. “That’s not the same as having _you_. Do you _want_ to leave, Eugene?”

“Rapunzel...”

“I could order you to stay.”

“You could.”

“I won’t. But I’d like you to stay.”

He wants to stay - she can see that in his eyes, in the way he holds her hand. But he thinks things are different now that she’s a princess and he’s just a thief. He doesn’t understand that she needs him, and Rapunzel’s not sure how to show him.

“It’s a nice kingdom,” she says after a moment. “The roof, I mean.”

“It does well enough. I like the view.”

“However, your kingdom is part of my kingdom--”

“Your kingdom-to-be--”

“My kingdom-to-be,” she agrees, relieved that he’s playing along with her this far, “and as such, I want you to pay taxes. To me.”

The smile softens his face before it touches his lips. And when Eugene leans across and touches his lips to hers, Rapunzel smiles and knows he’ll stay, at least for a little while longer.


End file.
